


amplecti mala malo

by openroad (GGenae)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: s9 spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-07-17
Packaged: 2018-02-09 06:38:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1972647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GGenae/pseuds/openroad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Collection of ficlet crap. No real connection between them. Most are old stuff I've rewritten, I guess?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. in cujus cute et atramentum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tattoo!au thing written for the lovely Lisa (ewdean.tumblr.com)  
> set after s9 finale  
> i suggest you stop now if you haven't seen it.

Sam woke up at four in the morning. His eyes stung and his back ached from the chair he’d slept slumped in. Something else was wrong, and bile rose in Sam’s throat as his eyes adjusted to the low light. A bed, a lamp casting dim light across its covers. A figure on the bed.

Dean.

Sam remembered.He lurched forward as the news struck him again, breaking the loose sutures that had reached to close the open wound as Sam slept. 

Dean was gone. Again. He had lost his only brother. Again. And once again, Sam knew it was his own doing.

Sam slumped back into the chair. He saw no fitting reason to move.  
Sam didn’t stray far from that room for the next two days. He wandered in circles from the chair to the bedside to the room’s only en suite, then back to his chair.

There was a voice, a reasonable contributor, that told Sam to cremate the body. Sam agreed, partly. John was cremated, Bobby was cremated. Kevin too.  It prevented the spirit from hanging around, but most importantly it was a tradition among them; an almost unwelcome one, albeit. So yeah, Sam agreed that it was time to cremate Dean’s body.

There was another voice too, though. It was unreasonable, but Sam gave it justification. Dean had died and come back so many times before. There was Mystery Spot, hellhounds, purgatory; heck, Sam couldn’t list them all. There had to be a way to get him back. The voice whittled away at Sam, and when his resolve grew too strong for it, it raised a new point. Sam could not burn a work of art.

Dean’s body lay out on the bed, bloody jacket and shirt stripped to simply a tank top and jeans. Sam found himself at his side many times in those two days, marvelling at the ink that twisted and writhed on his brothers arms; tattoos that Dean seldom showed to anyone, not even Sam.

With a careful finger, Sam traced the feathered pauldrons that adorned his brother’s shoulders - a suit of armour interlaced with symbols of protection and damnation; and reminders to Dean of the armour he wore, had built up over the years until he was impervious to attack and threat but trapped within himself.

Ashamed of his invasive interest in his dead brother (Sam bowed his head at the thought of the wise-cracks Crowley would make if he saw this), yet unable to control his curiosity, Sam raised the waistline of Dean’s grey tank top, and spent countless minutes mapping in his head the patterns that dug into Dean’s skin. The heart, centred upon his own. The names listed on his side, crossed off one by one:  ~~AZAZEL~~ ,  ~~ALASTAIR~~ ,  ~~URIEL~~ ,  ~~RUBY~~ , ~~LILITH~~ ,  ~~LUCY~~ ,  ~~MICHAEL~~ ,  ~~ROMAN~~ ,  ~~ABADDON~~ , CROWLEY, METATRON, GADREEL. Sam made a silent note to finish that list himself. Sam traced and memorised every devil’s trap, every anti-possession symbol, every latin verse and enochian spell inscribed upon his brother’s skin. His eyes had barely fallen upon the latin verse, “Non Timebo Mala” I will fear no evil, adorning the older Winchester’s collarbone, when a flicker of movement caught Sam’s attention.

  
Dean’s eyes were open.

They were pure black.

Sam jolted back and Dean’s blue, dead lips moved.

  
“Sammy, what the fuck?”


	2. culpa in nobis est

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> based after s9 finale  
> again, s9 finale spoilers
> 
> also, sad Sam Winchester
> 
> read at own risk

Sam Winchester spent that first night alone in the bunker with a bottle of whiskey. Of all the times he’d seen his brother die, suffered that unimaginable anguish, this time felt the most permanent.

Sam had told Dean that he wouldn’t have tried to save him. It was only a few short weeks ago that the two of them hardly spoke if they could help it; and yet, the first thing Sam had gone to do since laying his brother’s body out on that bed was to offer his soul up to the King of Hell.

Some things never change.

Crowley never turned up, and that’s when the blind reasoning had set in. Not ten minutes later, Sam found himself surrounded by the ingredients for an angel summoning; that one, unrelenting word resounding at thee forefront of his mind: TUESDAY.

Gabriel didn’t turn up either. He, at least, had the excuse of being dead. Crowley had never had that much integrity.

Sam had wondered if Castiel knew that Dean was dead. He’d prayed to him all night, and by now he figured that he was busy with some angelic shit upstairs. How he could put that before the death of one of his closest friends, only God knows.

The bottle of whiskey that made for Sam’s only companion dwindled quickly, only to be replaced by a much more potent supporter- vodka. That made the task of passing out much easier on Sam.

…

Usually, when someone Sam loves dies, the morning after he wakes up to a split-second of bliss; a quiet moment of ignorance before the bone crushing truth weighs down on him again. This time, however, Sam isn’t spared even that mercy. A foggy memory from last night plays on a quiet loop in his head; threatening to drive Sam past his composure.

_Sam’s pouring another glass of vodka - he had been to apathetic to find any shot glasses - and is about to empty it down his burning throat when he hears the squeak and click of a door opening and closing. Then the lights start flickering as he hears a creak of the floorboards behind him. When the strong reek of sulphur hits his nose, even Sam’s alcohol-numbed mind can put two and two together._

_Curling his fingers around Ruby’s blade in his jacket pocket, Sam takes a deep breath before whisking around in his chair to bury it in the chest of the demon who crept up behind him._

_Sam looked up. Black eyes flicked back to show a vivid green. Just like his own. Golden-yellow sparks flew behind those eyes and around the knife hilt that sprang from his brother’s chest._

_Sam let go of the knife, and Dean Winchester fell to the ground._

Sam wrote it off as a nightmare, a guilty dream, until his eyes came to rest on his brother’s body-not on the pristine bed Sam had set him down on, but on the floor, blood covered and reeking of sulphur.


	3. Gabriel's Rune

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ohh hoo hoo, this one's a poem
> 
> spoilers for about s5? idk

Our father has gone,  
Forsaken his prize,  
A bond so strong, cast away,  
But brother, he is  
The one who has left  
Must I lose two good friends today?  
  
O fallen brother,  
I love you so much  
But I know where loyalties lie  
O fallen brother  
I’ll stand in your way  
The end of your reign is nigh  
  
I can’t say how it hurts  
to see those I love  
fall from the sky one by one  
Our family is broken  
Maimed beyond repair  
What is cannot be undone  
  
I left, hid my face  
I tried to erase  
The past for which I so longed  
My name I forgot  
My rank, left to rot  
For eons I was far from strong  
  
O fallen brother,  
I love you so much  
But I know where loyalties lie  
O fallen brother  
I’ll stand in your way  
The end of your reign is nigh  
  
Absence ran its course  
It was but sheer force  
of will kept me shut inside  
Your war followed me hence  
I sat on the fence  
For my life I could never pick a side  
  
I know in the end  
the choices I made  
made little difference at all  
But can you tell me whether  
the loss of a brother  
was worth keeping you standing tall?  
  
O fallen brother,  
I love you so much  
But I know where loyalties lie  
O fallen brother  
I’ll stand in your way  
The end of your reign is nigh  
  
O fallen brother,  
I’ll stand in your way.  
For mankind I’ll happily die.


End file.
